Nine people were sentenced to jail Tuesday after stealing rock samples and fragments of a scroll with Pharaoh Khufu's name on it from the Great Pyramid in 2013.
Three of those arrested were Germans who were posing as researchers interested in clarifying how Bronze Age people could have actually built the Great Pyramid 4,600 years ago, reports AFP.
The Germans left Egypt in the middle of the case so they were sentenced in absentia. If they are taken back into Egyptian custody - which may never happen because there is no extradition treaty between Egypt and Germany - the men will be entitled for an entire retrial, AFP reported.
The six Egyptians sentenced may not be so lucky. This group of men consisted of three employees of the antiques ministry, two pyramid guards and a travel agency director, AFP reported. They were all charged with assisting the robbery and sentenced to five years in prison.
The missing artificats were reported as missing at the end of 2013 and were retreived in August 2014.
The Great Pyramid is the only one of the ancient seven wonders of the world to still exist. It was built around 2560 B.C. to house the tomb of Pharaoh Khufu. The items left in the pyramid were the necesities the pharaoh felt he needed to bring to the afterlife with him.
